BREAKING: Court sentences IGP to 3 months in prison

ABUJA– Usman Alkali Baba, the Inspector-General of Police, was given a three-month prison term by the Federal High Court in Abuja on Tuesday for violating a legitimate court order.

The IGP should be committed to prison and held in custody for three months, or until he complies with an order it issued since October 21, 2011, the court ruled in a decision delivered by Justice M. O. Olajuwon.

“If at the end of the three months, the contemnor remains recalcitrant and still refuses to purge his contempt, he shall be committed for another period and until he purges his contempt”, the court held.

Following a lawsuit brought by Mr. Patrick Okoli, a police officer who was forcibly and illegally retired from the Nigerian Police Force, the IGP was sentenced to prison.

Although the Police Service Commission, PSC, recommended Okoli’s reinstatement into the Police, a decision that was upheld by the court, Justice Olajuwon noted that the IGP refused to abide by the order.

As special and general damages for the unlawful, illegal, and unconstitutional denial of the applicant’s rights and privileges as a Senior Officer of the Nigeria Police Force from 1993 until the present, the court also ordered the payment of N10 million to the applicant.

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